Home Body November 6, 2007

Anyhow, she tells me that my cousin who was meant to be moving from Dubbo to Brisbane, because her husband was offered a job up there a few months ago, is no longer moving. She said, with some surprise, that despite W being a truck driver and used to being away so much that he is really quite a home body and missed his family so much that he couldn’t wait for them to move up to Brissie to join him so quit and went home to them.

I dunno why she was surprised. Made perfect sense to me. My hubby drives for a living too. On any given day he could be in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Tamworth, Dubbo, Mildura, Canberra, Coff’s Harbour or anywhere in between. He’s is usually only away 4 nights a week, though it varies.

Thing is, when he’s home, he’s home. It can be hard to get him out of the house, so we don’t go out much, or go away much. And when he’s home he likes us to be home too so we mainly hang around the house doing…….. I dunno, just stuff. Just normal, average, everyday stuff. The kids and I do most of our socialising etc through the week.

Some people are surprised by how close hubby and I are. They think because he’s away so much that we mustn’t have much time for each other or to talk. But we do talk. All the time. I call him every night before I go to bed. We catch up on whats happened through the day and discuss any decisions that need to be made, and just anything else that comes to mind. He always calls me through the day to see how my day is and to let me know when he’s back on the road and when he’ll be home. He actually gets upset with me if I don’t call him to say goodnight. I get upset with him if he doesn’t kiss me goodnight every night that he’s home.

I think, no I know, that we talk more than a lot of other married couples we know and more often that not we even know whats going on in the other one’s head. That can be interesting. lol It also means that we don’t usually have hours or days to dance around issues trying to figure out what the other one is thinking or wanting or needing or ticked about and ending up in a big fight in the meantime. We just have to spit it out or suck it up.

I know a lot of couples couldn’t live with the added pressure of one partner being absent half the week or more. And I won’t sugar coat it. It’s not easy. My cousin calls it being a part time widow. And it’s what you are. Part time wife, part time single parent and always having to balance the two. I have to be able to cope on my own when he’s not home, but also remember to make sure to step back and let him be the husband and father when he’s here and we’ve had to learn to make our time as a family count. But it works for us and I guess that’s all that matters.